There are many situations where large number of analytical instruments are used to conduct large numbers of chemical, physical or biological tests on liquids. A prime example is an oil refinery where crude oil is distilled, cracked, reformed and the like to produce a variety of liquid hydrocarbon products. Modern refineries have extensive laboratories to run analytical tests on liquids that are intermediate products as well as end products in order to generate information leading to more efficient operation of the refinery. One known refinery has thirty gas chromatographs and a sizeable number of mass spectrometers in an analytical lab. Other examples of laboratories having large numbers of analytical instruments will be apparent to those skilled in the art such as pharmaceutical operations, medical laboratories, food manufacturing operations and the like.
Typically, a sample is taken at a location in the refinery or plant and delivered to a sample preparation station where an individual withdraws a suitably sized portion and places it in a clean specialized container known as a vial. Records are made to indicate when and where the sample was taken and suitable information is placed on the sample container so results can be appropriately correlated for study and analysis.
In a typical large analytical laboratory, such as may be found in chemical plants, oil refineries, medical laboratories, contract laboratories and the like, sample vials are loaded in a tray and manually delivered from the sample preparation station to a bank of analytical instruments, of which gas chromatographs (GCs) or combinations of gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers (MSs) are common. An individual loads the vials into the inlet tray or autoloader of the GCs or MSs and the analytical instruments more-or-less operate automatically to conduct the programmed tests on the samples in the vials, generate reports and transport the vials to an output tray of the instrument where the vials are ultimately collected and either discarded or temporarily stored.
Disclosures of some interest relative to this invention are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,733,026; 4,491,777; 4,886,401; 5,234,292; 5,441,699; 5,623,415; 5,805,454; 6,128,549; 6,141,602 and 6,659,693 and patent publications 2002/0198738 and 2004/0100415.